Hi guys, my name is Steve and happy to be on board here. Basically I'm in the market for a Turtle, and I'm in this for the long haul. I have my tank, license, lighting/heating and filter.

The one thing that has done my head in the most has been deciding on a decent substrate. I started with gravel acting on bad advice from a pet store. They never told me turtles could eat it and cause blockage, so I switched to a bed of polished black river rocks (3inch each). I loved the look of it but after a week the rocks were really slimy and it was hard to use a gravel vacuum due to their size. Now I've got a bed of glass pebbles but once again have found out that its probably not a great idea as the pebbles could chip and also they could confuse and disorientate turtles and fish when I put them in.

The thing is I really like the color at the bottom, and sand seems to be very fiddly, but I want to do what is best for the turtles with minimal cleaning hassle necessary (that's why I like the glass pebbles so much)

If anyone can help give me some advice on this I think I can be well on my way to having a nice looking tank. Also, if anyone knows if river rocks need continuous cleaning I would love to know, as I'm not about to take out 10kg of rocks and clean with a brush every week.